New Art House Cinema opens at Fort Myers Alliance for the Arts with 'Coco,' beer documentary

The Alliance for the Arts just got a major cinematic upgrade: A high-end movie screen, projector and sound system that transforms its Foulds Theatre into the new Art House Cinema for movie nights.

The theater officially debuts Saturday, Sept. 16, with the Pixar cartoon “Coco” for National Hispanic Heritage Month, followed Wednesday, Sept. 20, with the craft-beer documentary “One Pint at a Time.”

But there are many more films to come: Documentaries, first-run independent films and a monthly series showcasing classics from the American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest American Movies of All Time.

They’ll all be shown in an upgraded theater with more than $100,000 in new theater equipment, says Alliance for the Arts executive director Molly Rowan-Deckart.

“We made it sexy!” Rowan-Deckart says and laughs. “I mean, the equipment’s really great.”

That includes a retractable, 108-inch by 192-inch movie screen, surround sound and a 10,000-lumen Epson digital projector. The projector boasts an approximately $6,000 lens for a better “cinematic throw” to fill the screen, Rowan-Deckart says.

The result, she says, will be movie images that are “bright, crisp and beautiful.”

Foulds Theatre will still be home to Theatre Conspiracy

Before coming to the Alliance in 2021, Rowan-Deckart worked extensively with the film industry in Idaho, including as an arts lobbyist focused on film and director of the Idaho Horror Film Festival for seven years. And she’s been wanting to open an art-house cinema at the Alliance for two years.

“I was very much in that independent film world and love what it does for the economy,” Rowan-Deckart says. “I’m just a big supporter.”

Eric Raddatz, founder of the Fort Myers Film Festival, says he’s excited about the new theater and plans to show some of the festival’s movies there this season. He’s been screening indie movies in Fort Myers for 14 years at both the festival and its monthly Thank God It's Monday series at Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center.

“The Alliance entering the arena is welcome,” Raddatz says. “We both will benefit from the new theater and more awareness (of) indie film, as will the indie film community, I believe. … Anything that supports independent local filmmakers is something I support.”

The 135-seat Foulds will remain the home of theater troupe Theatre Conspiracy and other theater performances, Rowan-Deckart says. But converting the Foulds into a part-time art-house theater helps get more use out of the space.

“Traditional theater will always live here,” Rowan-Deckart says, “but we produce between five and eight (theatrical) shows a year. There’s a lot of down time, and it’s such a great cozy space to see a film.”

What to expect at Fort Myers' new Art House Cinema

After "Coco," the documentary “One Pint at a Time” opens a new a monthly film series held in collaboration with the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers. The documentary looks into the craft-beer industry, beer's Egyptian and African heritage, and the Black-owned breweries that make up less than 1 percent of U.S. breweries.

The screening will also let the audience meet brewers from two breweries featured in the movie (Atlanta’s Atlantucky and Tampa’s Bastet Brewing), drink beer from Bastet and take part in a Q&A with the filmmaker after the movie.

That educational component is an important part of the new Art House Cinema, Rowan-Deckart says. And it's something the separates “art house” theaters from other independent theaters.

Rowan-Deckart envisions the theater working hand-in-hand with the Alliance’s new Digital Arts Lab. She sees people shooting movies on their phones, editing them in the lab and them showing them on the Art House Cinema screen.

“It’s a great way to involve your community,” Rowan-Deckart says. “It’s a very collaborative process. It’s very hard to make a movie on your own.

“I think just the artistic spirit of film is exciting, and the community doesn’t get many opportunities to collaborate in that way.”

More about the AFI, Southern Circuit Tour series

The Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers series will feature six documentaries from independent Southern filmmakers, Rowan-Deckart says. “They run the gamut from beer to voting rights.”

Other films in the series will be:

• “Crossing Overtown” (Oct. 17)

• “Breaking News” (Feb. 21, 2024)

• “Battleground” (March 20, 2024)

• “Razing Liberty Square” (April 17, 2024)

• And “1946: The Mistranslation That Shifted Culture” (May 8, 2024).

Rowan-Deckart plans to start showing the first movie in the monthly AFI series in October, but she’s hasn’t decided yet which movie that will be.

For more information on the theater and its schedule, call 939-2787 or visit artinlee.org/experience/art-house-cinema.

Charles Runnells is an arts and entertainment reporter for The News-Press and the Naples Daily News. To reach him, call 239-335-0368 (for tickets to shows, call the venue) or email him at crunnells@gannett.com. Follow or message him on social media: Facebook (facebook.com/charles.runnells.7), X (formerly Twitter) (@charlesrunnells), Threads (@crunnells1) and Instagram (@crunnells1).

This article originally appeared on Fort Myers News-Press: Fort Myers' Alliance for the Arts opens Art House Cinema movie theater